1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for supporting a user in a vehicle to use a Web site.
2. Description of the Related Art
In some cases, an information terminal having a Web browser function of accessing a Web site on the Internet via wireless communication to browse Web pages of the Web site is mounted in a vehicle.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 10-300490 discloses a known technique for supporting a user to use a Web site with the above-mentioned information terminal. According to the technique, a navigation system stores the coordinates of location points and URLs, each URL providing information regarding the corresponding point, on the Internet such that each URL is associated with the coordinates of the corresponding point. The navigation system automatically accesses the URL, associated with the coordinates of each point near a current vehicle position or a recommended guided route, to download information stored at the URL to a memory. In addition, marks representing the points associated with the respective URLs are displayed at the respective points specified by the coordinates associated with the URLs on a map, which is displayed to present the current vehicle position and the recommended route to the user. The display pattern of each mark is changed depending on whether information has already been downloaded from the corresponding URL to the memory. When the user selects one of the marks, information downloaded from the URL corresponding to the selected mark and stored in the memory is displayed.
General vehicle-mounted information terminals use a mobile phone network to access the Internet. The rate of data transfer via the mobile phone network is relatively low. Disadvantageously, it takes a long time to download information, such as a Web page, from a Web site over the Internet.
Accordingly, when the display pattern of each mark linked to the corresponding URL is changed depending on whether information has already been downloaded from the URL, it may take a long time until the display pattern of the mark is changed to another pattern indicating that the information has been downloaded. In addition, while the pattern of the mark is changed to another pattern indicating the completion of download, the user cannot know whether information is being normally downloaded from the corresponding URL. Since it may take a long time to download information from the URL associated with the mark, even when the download is normally performed, the user may feel insecure about the download. If a problem occurs during the download, the user cannot know of the occurrence of the problem. Unfortunately, the user cannot promptly try to solve the problem.
According to the technique disclosed in the above-identified Publication, the marks representing the points, through each of which related information can be accessed using the corresponding stored URL, are displayed on the map. The user can easily access information related to a point of interest.
Disadvantageously, according to the technique, the user cannot know the description of information provided from the URL associated with each mark before actually browsing the information. Unfortunately, although the user can use information related to a point over the Internet, it is difficult to make use of the information depending on the description of the information.